Saudi women in top council want debate on driving

The Associated Press

Published
4:56 pm CDT, Wednesday, October 9, 2013

In this file photo taken May 24, 2011, Saudi women board a taxi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A campaign calling on women to drive on Saturday has started gathering support online and already has nearly 15,000 signatures. less

In this file photo taken May 24, 2011, Saudi women board a taxi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A campaign calling on women to drive on Saturday has started gathering support online and already has nearly 15,000 ... more

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In this file photo taken May 24, 2011, Saudi women board a taxi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A campaign calling on women to drive on Saturday has started gathering support online and already has nearly 15,000 signatures. less

In this file photo taken May 24, 2011, Saudi women board a taxi in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A campaign calling on women to drive on Saturday has started gathering support online and already has nearly 15,000 ... more

Saudi women in top council want debate on driving

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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi women on the ultraconservative kingdom’s top advisory council have called for a discussion on the sensitive issue of allowing women to drive, a move that could embolden reformers pushing to lift the ban.

The official request was made this week to the head of the Shura Council, council member Latifa al-Shaalan said, to address all “excuses” raised to keep women from driving since Islamic law and Saudi traffic laws do not forbid it.

Women seeking the right to drive in Saudi Arabia have been energized by a campaign calling on them to drive on Oct. 26. Saudi law does not explicitly prohibit them from driving, but religious edicts by senior and influential clerics are enforced by the police, effectively banning it. Authorities do not issue driving licenses to women.

The campaign started as an online petition last month and has so far garnered nearly 15,000 signatures.

In 2011, a Saudi woman was detained for posting an online video of herself driving, though her arrest launched wider protests.

Woman denied help gives birth on clinic’s lawn

MEXICO CITY — An indigenous woman squats in pain after giving birth, her newborn still bound by the umbilical cord and lying on the ground. It’s a photograph that horrified Mexicans because of where it took place: the lawn outside a medical clinic where the woman had been denied help, and it struck a nerve in a country where inequity is still pervasive.

The government of the southern state of Oaxaca announced Wednesday that it has suspended the health center’s director, Dr. Adrian Cruz, while officials conduct state and federal investigations into the Oct. 2 incident.

The mother, Irma Lopez, 29, told The Associated Press that she and her husband were turned away from the health center by a nurse who said she was only eight months pregnant and “still not ready” to deliver.

The nurse told her to go outside and walk, and said a doctor could check her in the morning, Lopez said. But an hour and a half later, her water broke, and Lopez gave birth to a son, her third child, while grabbing the wall of a house next to the clinic.

Quebec seeks curb on religious symbols

MONTREAL — Viewed from the outside, Quebec often seems like a place where all life orbits around the political destiny of a French-speaking province in an English-speaking country. The latest instance centers on religious headwear.

The trigger is a heatedly debated plan by the ruling party, the separatist Parti Quebecois, to make the provincial government religion-neutral. It wants to do so by banning symbols of religious faith such as Jewish skullcaps, Sikh turbans, Muslim head scarves and large crucifixes from public work places.

And as usual, the measure is being read also for what it says about the ruling party’s perennial goal of making Quebec independent of the rest of Canada. The analysis is that with support for separatism weakened, and an election being predicted for December, something spectacular is needed to rally the party base.

But the proposal appears to be losing support with that base, and if anyone is being mobilized, it’s the opposition. In recent weeks Montreal has witnessed the rare spectacle of thousands of protesting Muslims, Jews and Sikhs marching together through the streets.

Chile’s ‘Dalmatian Man’ risks getting evicted

SANTIAGO, Chile — In Chile, he’s known to many people as the “Dalmatian Man.”

After watching the 1996 Disney movie “101 Dalmatians,” Nelson Vergara began fantasizing about rescuing and taking care of as many dogs as possible. Today, 42 Dalmatians live in the backyard of his modest home on the outskirts of the Chilean capital.

“It all started because of that film,” said Vergara, 55. “That was computer-generated. But I wanted to do the real thing.”

That has him in trouble with the authorities. Neighbors constantly complain about the foul smell coming from his yard, and municipal officials have threatened to evict him by the end of the month.

Vergara says he only wants to set an example and raise consciousness so other Chileans can help in saving the growing number of stray dogs.

Attack on Jerusalem graves unnerves Christians

JERUSALEM — Christian leaders in Israel are up in arms over what they say is a string of relentless attacks on church properties and religious sites — most recently the desecration of a historic Protestant cemetery where vandals toppled stone crosses from graves and bludgeoned them to pieces.

The attack in the Protestant Cemetery of Mount Zion, one of Jerusalem’s most important historic graveyards, has struck a particularly sensitive nerve because some of the damaged graves belong to famous figures from the 19th and 20th centuries, a key period in Jerusalem’s history. Among them are a German diplomat, the founder of an orphanage who was a significant contributor to modernizing the city, and a relative of the owners of a prominent hotel.Though members of the clergy say interfaith relations between top religious leaders have never been stronger, and police have been more responsive to such attacks in recent years, they say attacks continue unabated. Some activists say not enough is being done to stop them.